Wood Goblin wrote: Tue Feb 03, 2026 11:31 am I just read The Guardian’s story about this, good lord,
it’s fucking awful.

It’s both totally shocking and totally unsurprising how many powerful men lied about the timing and nature of their relationships with Epstein and are now being caught in those lies.

This is precisely where I'm at.

The most baffling part to me is... Epstein went to fucking jail for what he did and afterwards so many rich/famous dudes still couldn't keep themselves away from him. I hope they all get what they deserve.

jfv wrote: Tue Feb 03, 2026 3:10 pm

Wood Goblin wrote: Tue Feb 03, 2026 11:31 am I just read The Guardian’s story about this, good lord,
it’s fucking awful.

It’s both totally shocking and totally unsurprising how many powerful men lied about the timing and nature of their relationships with Epstein and are now being caught in those lies.

This is precisely where I'm at.

The most baffling part to me is... Epstein went to fucking jail for what he did and afterwards so many rich/famous dudes still couldn't keep themselves away from him. I hope they all get what they deserve.

Same here. The tone of his emails is just gross. From the Guardian:

“The best way to proceed is to ignore it,” Chomsky wrote, according to text signed under his first name that Epstein sent to a lawyer and publicist. “That’s particularly true now with the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women, which has reached the point that even questioning a charge is a crime worse than murder.”

Fucking hell. “Hysteria “?!?!

Never liked him anyway

Seeing that Chomsky was pals with Bannon is like finding out David Attenborough’s favorite hobby was stamping on snow fox cubs

Deep breathe…. This is shit but like Picasso if we start piling personal failings in with artistic and intellectual outputs there’d be nothing to enjoy.

Chomsky is very old. It should be remembered his early resistance to the Vietnam War and constant thorn in the side of foreign interference by the US did provide a voice where few others had range. If we are judging Noam Chomsky Linguist / Activist, not crap.

But, he’s been making bad decisions and comments for some time. He’s really fucking old, 97 and I think has been in cognitive decline for at least 15 years. There’s been plenty of cranky comments and opinions that stray from his views during his academic and political “peak”. He could be infuriatingly “consistent” in his views. To the point of the rigidity of their application resulting in some very bad takes over the years.

For me in small town New Zealand discovering Chomsky in the early 90s was a fundamental shift in how I viewed the world and opened up possibilities I would never have considered otherwise.

Not crap for a lifetime of activism and intellectual influence but clearly huge waffles for not knowing when his time was up and shutting the fuck up.

champagne socialist and a sex pest, crap

I’m putting this down to elder abuse and ignoring everything about Chomsky from 2010 onwards.

absolute power corrupts absolutely...that also goes for professors. I don't entirely disagree with Trump withholding federal funding to private universities. Or rather I completely agree with it (thought not for his reasons). MIT is just another SpaceX or whatever asshole collection plate is passed around at these dinner parties. Just google MIT / Lincoln Laboratory and military-industrial complex, and you'll start to get the drift. Chomsky is basically professor emeritus at Blackwater.

Literally the most shocking reveal that I've experienced is that photo of Chomsky with Bannon; it's like Mission Impossible or Scooby fuckin' Doo it's so surprising. I'm struggling to find any justification, and I feel like a fool for putting him on a pedestal. The email where he "fantasizes" about the island made me gag. I would like the hours back that I strained to listen to his nearly unintelligible mumble-mouth bullshit. Luckily, he went wrong years ago, as far as I was concerned, so I at least have that.

I have a tendency to hero-worship -- no more.